


This Burning Thing (between you and me)

by albabutter



Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), The Prince of Egypt (1998)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 18:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14141754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albabutter/pseuds/albabutter
Summary: Rameses is an only child again. He loses his brother to the desert and an anger he doesn’t understand.His mother mourns, and his father tells him to stand up straight.“Gods do not weep.”Rameses wonders if Gods ever feel lost.





	This Burning Thing (between you and me)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Это пламя межд нами](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17541803) by [White_Crow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Crow/pseuds/White_Crow)



> niche fic; romantic if you squint, but doesn't have to be; also it's only incest if they're related, right?

Rameses is three, the son of a Pharaoh, descended from the Gods, and the center of his parents’ universe. He is up with the sun and never alone, and the only cries he hears in Egypt are his own. 

Moses never cries. 

He is silent in the basket, lulled to sleep by the waves of the river, and Rameses immediately reaches out to poke him. His mother slaps his hand away, and he’s too surprised to remember to be upset about it. His mother’s hands are gentle when she pulls him out of the basket, into the air, and out of Rameses’ reach. He learns from an early age that Moses is not to be touched. 

The pharaoh is indulgent, the queen is attentive, and Rameses is fascinated. If anyone pays more attention to Moses than him, Rameses doesn’t notice. He’s too busy following him around the palace. He’s been told to take care of his little brother, and it’s a job that he takes seriously. At five, he guards Moses from anyone and everyone. His father says it’s the mark of a good leader. His mother says it’s the sign of a gentle soul. His nursemaids say nothing, but he sees them sigh and shake their heads when they find him dragging Moses with him everywhere he goes. 

He tells Moses everything and nothing. It’s the kind of gibberish his father doesn’t have time for and his servants have endless patience for. But they don’t smile at him the way Moses does, bright and happy, like he’s happy to see him. He frequently wanders off, distracted by something else. It’s a pattern that repeats itself for years. No one has ever wandered away from Rameses; in the miniature kingdom in his nursery, he is the last to enter and the first to leave. But Moses leaves him whenever he wants, but he doesn’t go far. Rameses never chases after him, because princes don’t chase after anyone unless they’re on a horse, but he always waits for him to come back.

* * *

 

Rameses is a young prince and completely incorrigible. He blames Moses completely. Rameses is the spitting image of his father-broad nose, broad shoulders, and he’s never bowed his head in his life. When he walks into a room, everyone turns and watches him in respectful silence. 

Moses is thinner, taller, unburdened by the mantle of kinghood, and when he walks into a room, he gets smiles. 

Rameses is smart and charming, his mother’s son. But by divine law, he lives in a bubble, shielded. He does not move among the people because he is above them. Gods are meant to be untouchable: a thousand hands reaching out to him—in worship, in reverence, but never forgetting their station. 

Moses spends at least half of his day trying to tackle him, teasing him into a fight. He moves in and out of Rameses’ orbit effortlessly. There is no respect, no reverence, no worship. He’d punch Rameses in the face before he’d kiss his feet, and he doesn’t hesitate to put Rameses in his place. Moses never treats him like a god, or a king. He treats him like a brother, which is how Rameses ends up in wrestling matches in sacred temples, chariot races instead of council meetings, and ignoring his responsibilities instead of learning to be a king. 

He bounces back and forth between his father’s frown and his brother’s grin. The older he gets, the harder it is to sneak away. First sons and birth sons grow up in the shadows of their fathers. Moses is neither, and it’s impossible to ignore. It would be easy, and probably expected, for them to move apart. But with every step Rameses takes closer to the throne, Moses takes two, closing the gap between them. Most days, Rameses doesn’t know who is chasing who, equally hungry for each other’s company. He pulls Moses out of trouble, and Moses pulls him away from his father’s disappointment. 

It’s easy in a palace to get lost in each other, an existence cushioned from the problems of a kingdom in ruin. The cracks of whips and the yells of slaves are background noise, indistinguishable from the whips on their horses and their own yells as they push each other to higher heights. It’s just white noise, until one day it isn’t.

* * *

 

Rameses is an only child again. He loses his brother to the desert and an anger he doesn’t understand. 

His mother mourns, and his father tells him to stand up straight. 

_ “Gods do not weep.” _

Rameses wonders if Gods ever feel lost.

* * *

 

Rameses is a son who loses his father. The city grieves and rejoices as it crowns one king and buries another. He sits on the throne and feels like a child again—playing and pretending while Moses stands guard. Moses had never wanted to sit on the throne. Rameses can’t stop himself from looking for Moses in the crowd. He’s not there, and Rameses becomes Pharaoh alone. 

His mother waits for him, and after the celebrations are over and the kohl around his eyes is wiped away, he goes to her. She opens her arms, and he falls into them without hesitation. He’s taller than her—has been for years—but she bears his weight effortlessly. 

_ “I miss him.” _

He doesn’t know if he means his father or his brother, but his mother cups his face gently, and it’s enough. 

She joins him his first day on the throne, and when he meets her eyes, she nods and gives him a small smile. He instinctively looks to his right where his brother should have been. His new advisor stands to the left, and Rameses learns to keep his eyes forward. 

He is the husband of a woman with a soft voice, soft hands, and a soft body always ready for his. She’s sweet as honey and always ready to do whatever it is that the wives of Pharaohs do to keep their kings strong and steady. 

He cares for her, does what he can to keep her happy. It’s easy enough. But too often he finds himself thinking of another body, less soft, freckled and broader, and as familiar to him as his own. He learns what it means to crave and be denied for the first time in his life. He keeps his thoughts to himself and when his wife turns into the mother of his child, he lets go of a lost body and a lost chance, and starts to build an empire for his son.

* * *

 

Rameses is the brother of a prophet. When Moses comes back—and Rameses should have remembered that he  _ always _ comes back—he’s got a face full of sorrow and a mouth full of nonsense. Ramses takes him in his arms anyways. Moses grabs him back, his arms squeezed as tightly as Rameses’s. He tries to think of the last time he’s been held like this; how touch starved he’s become. They lean into each other, breathing the same air for the first time in years, and his shoulders, so weary from a life spent apart, sag in relief. The beard is new, and the voice is wrong—somber and burdened—but their bodies know each other, a familiarity that almost makes up for the stranger his brother has become. 

Moses speaks of a foreign god with a calm confidence that sets his teeth on edge. Rameses looks away from Moses and to his advisors, and it’s harder than it should be. It’s easy enough to distract the crowd; fear and wonder never fail. But Moses never looks away from him, unconvinced and pitying. His anger is a poisonous thing, and for the first time, it’s only for his brother. 

_ This is what you found in the desert? This is why you left me? _

Rameses is a God, and he can’t bear the thought of losing his brother to another.

* * *

 

Rameses is a father hollowed by grief. 

Egypt weeps with him, but his own cries are the only ones he hears. 

He is a slighted god, a vengeful king, and a man abandoned. 

It’s easy to start one last chariot race, to rally an army and chase after a shepherd who used to be a prince who used to be a slave. But even now, Moses stays ahead of him, and Rameses wonders if maybe Moses is the untouchable one—if maybe Moses would always be held up and out of his reach.

He loses half his army to the cliffs and the plagues he didn’t inflict and couldn’t stop. But he keeps going—the faith of a thousand men meaningless against the betrayal of one. 

When the sea parts, Rameses feels true awe and a pang of regret.

_ ‘Brother, how magnificent we could have been-‘ _

Moses looks back, once, and even then, even with everything between them—a split sea, a throne, a holy name, Rameses still calls out for him. But he doesn’t come back.

* * *

 

Rameses is the Pharaoh of an empty kingdom. 


End file.
